by Faith Hunter
Tuffs jumped onto the table and sat. I retook my place across from her and lowered my head. She put her head against mine. We didn’t have to touch to communicate, but it helped. I sent a picture vision of our heads touching, followed by a picture vision of the world as viewed from the front gate, looking away from the junkyard. Then a picture vision of a big truck rolling down the road in a cloud of dust, me driving and Spy, a pride member, sitting on the dash. Last, I sent one of my head and Spy’s touching.
Tuffs reared back and said, Sisssss, hissing at me, showing her teeth, saying in her very pissed-off cat-speak, No!
I had been afraid of that. Spy would not be joining our mission.
∆∆∆
The sun wasn’t up yet when I stepped into the cool West Virginia air, tapped my comms, and said, “Mateo. Got a minute?”
“Bad news or worse?” his bio-metallic larynx ground out.
“Eh. Could be worse, but not by much. It’s Evelyn.”
Mateo didn’t answer right away, the silence between us the smooth background quiet of EntNu communications, courtesy of the USSS SunStar’s comms.
Over the connection, I heard the faint whining movement of servos and the even softer sound of a warbot’s foot-pegs touching down in sequence—Mateo in stealth mode, approaching my position.
Three junkyard cats raced out of the darkness and sprang up onto piles of scrap metal, curious, watching in the darkness. Waiting. Hhhhah mmm, one of them said. That meant yes, or this is true, or this is good in cat-speak. I figured they were expecting entertainment. Maybe a human version of a catfight? Me and Mateo? He’d squish me like a bug. And the cats would get protein. That would explain their excitement.
Mateo had gone down with the SunStar. He had thought he was the only one on board when the battleship plunged out of the sky during an intra-system clash with the Chinese, the Russians, and the Bugs—the aliens “visiting” Earth. Only recently had we figured out that Mateo’s second-in-command, Captain Evelyn Raymond, had still been on board the SunStar, in direct contradiction of orders, backing up her CO from a hidden location in the stern.
The forward half of the SunStar—a spaceship built by the western alliance, led by the US—had crash-landed at the back of Smith’s scrapyard at the end of World War III. The stern half had broken off and crashed on top of an old mine, creating a new crevice. The stern of the spaceship had ended up smashed, a long way underground. Out of sight, out of contact.
CO Mateo had survived.
And so, apparently, had Evelyn, who was now in the hands of our enemy, being tortured.
One cat, a tabby with a white chest, glanced slant-eyed at me in the predawn light and chuffed before looking away. I heard a faint sound in the night, right where the cats were staring.
Seven and a half meters of warbot suit appeared, looming, blocking out the last of the night’s stars, as Mateo stepped almost daintily over piles of old scrap. His suit looked and worked like a huge spider—his three, five-and-a-half-meter-long legs telescoping and folding down until the matte-black torso and head of the suit were on a level with mine. A warbot could fit into much smaller spaces than it might first appear. He could fit through the back airlock to the office if he didn’t mind getting his pretty chitosan paint job scratched. Mateo’s scarred and misshapen human visage was visible behind a meter of horizontal silk-plaz view screen, vaguely like a single massive spider eye.
“Talk to me,” he said.
“We’ve speculated that Warhammer captured and enthralled Raymond.”
“Possibility acknowledged. Continue.”
“I got a message today. I figure it means that Clarisse is coming for the goodies buried in the scrapyard.”
The warbot didn’t react. Mateo’s hairless, scarred, misshaped head didn’t move, but the scars around his mouth pulled, as if he knew the next bit would be bad. “You’re not finished. Report,” he snapped out, sounding like the Commanding Officer he had once been.
Gently, I said, “Evelyn’s finger came in the mail. It was removed from her living body four days ago. No note. No return address.”
Mateo stared at me. A juvenile pride cat bounded to his carapace, found no traction, and slid down the silk-plaz viewport, legs and claws scrabbling for purchase, falling. Mateo grabbed him out of the air, placing him on the dirt. The cat shook off the fall, his body language saying he meant to do that. Gathering his dignity, he sauntered into the darkness.
Mateo still said nothing, and I wondered how much of the situation he was processing. My friend—I guess he was still my friend?—had fairly significant brain damage from a nanobot attack, but I’d been trading for new Berger chip plug-ins to fill his brain with info, and they were helping him heal and process things.
According to my timeline, Clarisse Warhammer had learned, through Evelyn, about the SunStar at some point in the last six months. That had led the queen to Smith’s Junk and Scrap, to Harlan, to the mine crack, and to the stern of the SunStar half buried at the back of the junkyard. Because we weren’t expecting an attack, we hadn’t been prepared. Mateo and I—and our unwanted visitor at the time, Jagger—had mounted the best defense we could when she attacked. That best defense meant that Warhammer had a good idea that there was Bug-alien tech and weapons in the office. And now, clearly, she had figured out who I was.
Mateo stared at me, unblinking, his face like a brick wall, showing no emotion. The cats got bored, and all but one sauntered away. As dawn began to gray the sky, Mateo said, “She wants the part of SunStar Evelyn told her about. Warhammer won’t be informing the Law or the MS Angels. She thinks you’re human, and she doesn’t know about me, because Evelyn thinks I’m dead. She thinks you’re weak and stupid, and she’s taunting you, hoping you’ll run scared if she gives you a warning. She thinks the Bug-tech is something we got on the black market, something small and localized. She doesn’t know your office is a high-tech Bug ship. She thinks you got lucky last time and can be defeated. This time she’ll bring more weapons. More men. How fast can she transition humans and create a nest?”
“I agree. And I don’t know. I never tried more than one at a time, and I needed a med-bay for that. She may transition them without a med-bay and hope for the best, which would give her a faster turnaround time.” My two successes were Cupcake and Jagger. Neither one of whom I had wanted as a thrall. I still wasn’t sure if Mateo was a success or a failure.
Overhead, the last of the night’s stars winked out as my friend raised to his full height and loomed over me. He wasn’t going to hurt me, but my body tensed anyway, ancient fight-or-flight instincts trying to kick in.
Mateo was as close to cyborg as it was possible for a human to be. He was more machine than man, now, but he still thought and grieved at human speeds. The parts of his face that still worked twisted in anguish; his jaw and mouth tightened. He focused on me in the dim light. “We need the Simba,” he said at last.
A Simba was a huge heavy battle tank built at the end of the war. It had weapons that could take out precision targets at five kilometers using aerial targeting systems; had lasers and jamming devices to bring down remote aircraft; had rail guns, blasters that could take down a platoon of warbot-suited warriors; had all the bells and whistles of a combat professional’s dreams. It could be AI-directed, remote robo-guided, or warbot-suit operated, and some were built for multiple manning methods. Mateo was a warbot suit manned with a living breathing human, the best option of them all. Rumor had it this Simba was also mounted with a city-killer. With it, we could take out Warhammer, even if she was in an underground bunker.
“Can you leave for Charleston now?” he asked.
“Eight sharp,” I said, “if you already got the AI-uplink prepared and the weapons affixed to the diesel.”
“Jolene’s comm unit is ready to go,” Mateo said. “The EntNu uplink will go directly through to her.”
Jolene had started out as a standard AI on the USSS SunStar half buried out back. Thanks to contamination by m
y nanobots, she had gained sentience and self-determination. She was now a Southern belle with attitude.
“Weapons mounted on the truck two days ago,” he continued. “Its scanners are crap compared to the office’s or my own, but are operational and integrated with the auto-targeting firing of the Para Gen. Did maintenance on armor and windows, but to fire reliably you’ll need to be outside, meaning you have offense or defense options, not a combo. I installed eight mini-cams to keep track of the flatbed’s contents, the cab, and the undercarriage. AC’s running, but it won’t last. Your trade gear’s loaded.”
“I’ll get our personal gear and meet you out front.”
“Roger that.” Mateo moved silently into the gray of near dawn.
Cupcake and I were going on a road trip to dig up and steal a Simba. For that to happen we had to beg, borrow, or steal an earthmover. And we couldn’t let anyone know. Yeah. Secrets.
We had known this day was coming for a while, and Mateo and Cupcake had come up with two different plans to rescue the Simba. They were full of holes so big you could guide a spaceship through them.
My version covered the details and utilized Jagger, a made-man with the Outlaw Militia Warriors. He had survived the Battle of Mobile. Three Simbas had been involved in the salvation of Mobile. So he might even have experience remote-driving one of the behemoths, should Mateo be needed elsewhere, like fighting in his warbot suit. Jagger knew weapons, and the OMW had contacts with the military. I’d contact Jagger once I got to Charleston. And I would be very careful not to touch him. Very bloody careful.
To get the Simba, I might need the cats’ cooperation, which I had yet to obtain, but thanks to Warhammer’s visit, the two prides had discovered a delight in war games and a taste for human flesh. Unless I was very mistaken, Tuffs—the Guardian Cat—would get a lot of pressure to send a cat crew to war with us.
∆∆∆
By 7:40 a.m., the last of the valuables were fully secured on the flatbed of the diesel truck. All that was left was the camouflage junk. Gyro-balanced on armored legs, Mateo’s warbot stepped over piles of scrap, carrying a couple hundred kilos of low-grade steel and pitted aluminum in his three servo-powered arms.
Banging everything around like a kid with old pots and pans, he positioned and secured the cheap scrap over the good stuff I was taking to trade, which included some high-grade steel, several hundred pounds of copper, and several dozen sterling-silver trays.
Cupcake had found the sterling in the same storage shed where she discovered the silver utensils, the dinnerware, and a box of gold-and-gem jewelry that she said was the real deal. The blackened trays had been plastic-wrapped, stacked five trays deep and three meters tall, in a shed I had never inventoried, and she had offered them up to us this morning, when Mateo told her we were implementing our plan early. Finding the silver and jewelry meant that Cupcake had earned her water usage several times over. Instead of stealing, I could trade for a working backhoe or dozer to dig out the Simba, if I could find a shady owner who would keep his mouth shut. And maybe I could outright buy a portable WIMP antigravity grabber to power up the Simba.
Mateo had fastened and strapped the scrap in the bottom of the ancient flatbed, lashing it all down with flex before he positioned the truck bed’s armored walls. The banging had brought cats from everywhere; dozens perched, watching from every vantage point. Tuffs was with them. By her body language—turned away—she was not happy with me. Walking flat-footed so I didn’t step on a random kitten, I gently shoved cats out of the way and tossed my satchels into the niche built into the truck bed. Cupcake did the same with her gear, then jumped over the short truck-bed wall and arranged our personal bags so they were easy to get to and wouldn’t bounce out when we hit potholes. Though still tentative, in the last two hours Cupcake had revealed a different side of herself as she helped to load for the trip, offering suggestions for trade items and chattering to Mateo. She had crazy-mad organizational skills.
As the other two worked, I climbed in the cab and checked the weapons. Mateo had long ago armored the diesel and affixed supports for weapons that could be rotated down for use and back into hidden compartments as needed. Only a fool traveled without protection, because there would surely be trouble. It was better to be prepared for everything than wake up dead.
Roadblocks created by local redneck thieves were not unknown. Assaults and disappearances were common. If the biker gang calling itself the MS Angels was moving east and taking territory, as rumors indicated, they would eventually hit Charleston, and the MSA were known to cover all their bases—meaning every road in and out. On the truck and on my person I was carrying multiple weapons of different calibers and energy usages, up close and distance weapons, as well as scanning and diagnostic gear. That stuff took up a lot of room, and in the cab, close at hand, was the only place I wanted it.
Spy, the many-times-great-granddaughter of the junkyard cats’ queen, wandered all over the cab as I worked, sticking her nose into everything, getting in my way, and generally being a cat-pest. She mrooowed repeatedly, and I finally said, “The Guardian Cat said you can’t go with me, so take up your argument with her. I’m not the cat-queen.”
Spy looked at me and twitched her tail in clear disagreement, but she bounded out of the cab and disappeared, dodging around Mateo’s peg legs.
“Tuffs is not going to be happy you sicced Spy on her,” Mateo said, a hint of laughter in his mech voice.
“Yeah, well, with power comes responsibility. Or something like that.” My Berger chip inserted: With power comes great responsibility. The quote was spoken by Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben, in—
I shut it off. My chip input system needed an update. Usually that required outpatient surgery, but any surgeon or nursing staff who worked on me would likely be infected by my mutated nanobots, and I wasn’t willing to have another thrall stuck to me like duct tape.
Tuffs leaped into the cab and landed on my back, her claws digging in. I yelped, and she jumped to the dash.
“That hurt!” I pulled my shirt out and reached up my back. “I’m bleeding! And why are you mad at me? The decision to not let Spy go was yours, not mine.”
Tuffs arched her back, tortoiseshell hair standing out as if she’d been electrocuted, and she bared her canines. Sisssss, she said, the word and her body language majorly pissed off, leaf-green eyes narrowed. I thought for a moment that she was going to jump me again, but she stuck her head out, as if to say we needed to touch heads to communicate.
“Nuh-uh. No way. I’m not getting near you. I’m bleeding,” I enunciated. And then I realized what had just happened and how it affected the pecking order, in a way that would not benefit anyone. I didn’t get mad often, but I felt a little blood boil at the back of my skull. I dropped my blood-specked shirt and faced the Guardian Cat. Softly, so her people wouldn’t hear me, I said, “Listen very carefully. And think back to before I came. You had to hunt rats and toxic bats to stay alive. Most of your kits died before they reached maturity. Starvation was a predator that followed you everywhere. Your males were dangerous, and the females traveled in gangs, fighting in groups to keep the males in their places. You remember?”
Tuffs narrowed her eyes to slits but closed her mouth. Her back slowly relaxed from its attack-mode arch. Her hair settled. Hhhhah mmm, she said.
“Right. I provide food and water because I want to, not because I have to. This is my junkyard. You do not get to chastise me. You do not get to punish me. If you try that again, I’ll never defrost another body for your cats. You do not have opposable thumbs. You cannot do it without me.”
Tuffs eyes went wide again, and her ears went flat. There were still a number of Clarisse’s henchmen and women stored in the SunStar’s freezer, valuable protein for the cats. Orrrowmerow, she said, the sound that meant “this is a bad problem.”
“Yeah. Bad,” I said. I watched as thoughts flittered through her little cat brain. “So, how do you want to play this?”
Tuf
fs pulled her paws in under her, curling her tail against her feet. The tip twitched in agitation, but she was calmer. “Meep?” she asked, saying she was listening and wanted my attention too.
I tilted my head, catlike. “You scratch me again and there will be consequences.”
“Hhhhah mmm,” she said, agreeing, suddenly acting like a docile housecat.
Gingerly, one arm prepared for defense, I scooted forward in the passenger seat. I met her eyes and eased my head forward almost half the distance.
Tuffs sighed, her whiskers moving. Smoothly, she eased forward and touched my forehead with hers.
In her mind, I saw her love for Spy, her hopes, expectations, needs. Tuffs was old for a feral cat. Spy was from her most favored bloodline, what I understood was Cat of Ours. It was like a title and a complicated concept all in one. The cat part meant sneaky / savvy / smart / fighter / ambush-hunter / tracker / warrior / feline / female / person. The thought “ours” was imbedded with a long series of relationship constraints and successful territory and military maneuvers and a lot of bloodline pride.
Spy was a cat-of-value. Spy was important to both prides. Tuffs sent a query. “Understand Spy?”
Tuffs thought Spy would be the next Guardian Cat.
“Oh,” I said. “You think she can lead, communicate with cat-ESP, and pass along the nanobots. A true queen.” I sent a thought-concept to her about Spy needing to explore the world. To prove herself before the prides as worthy, a warrior of valor.
Tuffs, her whiskers tickling my face, made a soft sound of defeat, “Huuuhhhnnn.”
She sent visions of me protecting Spy, keeping her safe—the visions mostly of my body accepting gunfire and blades as I covered her.
“Yes.” I agreed. “I’ll keep her safe, as much as I’m able. But she’s yours. She won’t sit still or stay safe to make us happy. You know that.”
Tuffs chuffed in disgusted acceptance. She sent me a vision of a clowder of seven cats, counting Spy, all in the cab with us on the road.